Friday, March 13, 2009

My Plate Wall

Our compulsive decision to buy a wall mounted television changed a lot of things in our living room a few months ago. We had a large flat screen weighing over 250 pounds sitting on an even larger entertainment center which took up a lot of room. When we moved the entertainment center and the television, there was a big dark static mark on our butter cream walls. I figured I could just Magic Eraser it away and a few minutes later my wall looked like the movie Dark Water. We didn't want to repaint our rental AGAIN, especially since we just painted the dining room, but we didn't have anymore paint to match and we couldn't justify investing so much on such a nice television to hang it on a dirty wall. We headed to the paint store and hurriedly picked out Ralph Lauren Reflecting Pool and gave it a semi-gloss finish to hide the poor quality and earthquake damage of our rental walls. It was such a drastic change, although we liked it none of the artwork we had looked fitting anymore. I decided to do a plate wall on a small wall separating two windows.

Kelly Wearstler's plate wall at The Viceroy in Santa Monica is one of the most notable plate walls around.

This wall was posted on Martha Stewart's blog by Lisa & Rena.

A room designed by Courtney Giles features a small plate cluster over a dresser.

And here's mine. A couple of the plates I already had, like the Jonathan Adler large fish platter on the top left. Others I picked up here and there within a day or two. What do you think?

Hi Lucinda,,, I am impressed! I have loved plate walls since seeing this one at Porches in the Berskshires of MA: http://www.porches.com/html/tour/gallery/4.html. This is former worker housing turned hotel--six brightly painted V1890s Victorian row houses avec porches lined with rocking chairs. I never thought I could pull off my own plate wall though. Hmmm. Think I'll reconsider! I like your all-white plates in a soft diamond shape on the dark wall. Really lovely. Kelly W. should give you a couple of those white chairs to go along with--for your stylish efforts!

Thanks ladies. I know the Viceroy uses caulk to adhere theirs, but I figured my landlord wouldn't appreciate that so I just used regular plate hangers from Aaron Brothers and nailed them to the wall. The hangers needed some finagling in order to get them to hang up straight, but other than that is was relatively easy.

Beautiful job! Love the wall color too. I found you looking for plate wall inspiration. My hubby thinks its old lady to hang them but i have really grown to like the look. Plus I just found some really cool plates at an estate sale.Londen